Vertical bars of grey acrylic, dove to light charcoal, move across this square canvas by master colorist, Milly Ristvedt. The bars, that appear to breathe rhythmically against the picture plane, are made more contemplative by the profound title of the painting -- apparent nothingness is actually everything. Thoughts on this inherent and known contradiction in the nature of the universe emerge through quiet meditation of this monochrome canvas.

In the recent publication, Milly Ristvedt: Colour and Meaning, critic Lola Tostevin writes: "The grey stripes in this painting could simply be the result of mixing black and white, but it is so much more. Black, the total absence of light, is experienced as nothing but its colour. White, on the other hand, absorbs every colour on the spectrum. In combining black and white in all its permutations, the painting represents nothing figurative, yet it contains everything fundamental to its creation...The textured greys of Everything and Nothing project tranquility, reflection and, ironically, silence."

Milly Ristvedt, RCA, began her career in Toronto in 1964 after studies with Takao Tanabe at the Vancouver School of Art. In Toronto, during the 1960s and 1970s she was making and exhibiting large scale paintings alongside a small but defined group of non-figurative painters who, like Ristvedt, had planted roots in modernism. These roots continue to run deep for Ristvedt who completed her MA in Art History at Queen's University in 2011 with a thesis that explored colour in the grid of contemporary painting. Ristvedt's paintings are part of private and public collections including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, and the Vancouver Art Gallery. She has had over 50 solo exhibitions. In 2012, she received the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal for her service as an advocate for artists.

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